the thoughts of a female 20 something

Tag Archives: feminism

I don’t want that to come off the wrong way; I’m a woman so of course I want equal everything, too.

It just seems like the word ‘feminist’ has lost its meaning , and the image of the feminist is skewed.

According to Webster’s, ‘Feminism’ is:

the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests

But if you ask the Internet what a feminist is, a majority of the responses you’d get (mostly from men, I’m sure) would be “ugly women who like to bitch and complain about men.’

The truth is that, as women, we have something to complain about.

I often come across men who make my skin crawl and make me wonder why I share the same air as them.

I’ve been cat called. I’ve been whistled at. I’ve been approached in public. Just for being a woman who happens to be walking alone.

I’ve been scared.

Scared to say how I really feel in those moments, which is usually ‘leave the fuck alone.’

But instead of saying that, I usually don’t say anything because if I do, who knows that will happen?

Too often women are made out to be bitches just because we do not want to encourage men’s ‘flirty’ behavior i.e. them telling us to smile more, or even going so far as to cat call or whistle at us from a moving car. It’s not welcomed. Yet, even though this seems like an obviously trivial concept to grasp, women are living in fear that these men, who can’t handle the fact that a woman has an opinion to express that (GOD FORBID) could be about the way we are treated by them, will retaliate.

I stumbled across this awesome post today on Medium.com written by a woman who took to Twitter with a selfie that said ‘FUCK YOU IF YOU TELL A WOMAN TO SMILE’ after being approached by some creep, only to be harassed and called awful names by a bunch of trolls. Definitely check it out here. It’s powerful stuff.

It really is unfair that we live in a world like this, where women have to watch what they say or do, or don’t say and don’t do, because even when we do nothing, like sit by ourselves and mind our own business, we are bitches.